I am sooooo depressed...

[StarkAndWitchesWillFindYou]

Got ds' IEP yesterday. The targets are SO unambitious and pointless. They aren't even bad they are horrific.

I have in my possession the next targets for ds, that he would have not only worked on, but ACHIEVED by half term on our ABA programme.

I have no evidence that ds has achieved anything so far at school, because all the professionals are refusing to fill in a professionals log book to say what they are working on.

And now to be presented with 3 unchallenging, BORING in fact targets, with no explanation of how they are to be met. Well, it says do turn taking at 9:50 every morning for 10 minutes, but not any strategies for getting ds to participate, let alone be interested.

I'm just in tears for the no. of weeks he has spent in that setting with such low expectations. HOW can they arrive at that, after 5 weeks, with 18.5 hours of additional professional support? How can they say (which they have) that any more than 3 vague targets would be unmanageable? They have the staff ffs.

I'll pull myself together. I have to. I ALWAYS have to.

But right now I'm gutted beyond compare...

Noooooo - surely not Well that would need nipping in the bud, for sure!!

If tribunal ruled on the 'package' that your LA proposed being a good solution, the minute that 'package' is taken from, surely you have right of appeal?

LOL.

It's such a mess. It really is.

This is all about failure to deliver services jointly and in an integrated way, against a backdrop of resource issues that is manned and served by evil.

The actual people involved are not bad people. The school themselves are really REALLY trying to please but we have so much interference by the LA, and lies to boot that the school are stuck in the middle not knowing who to believe. It is much safe (not to mention cheaper) to take the side of the LA.

DH currently at parents evening, and bringing me back a kebab.

Wine goes with kebabs right?

Wow, I am amazed that you can let your DH go to parents evening - I'd find that really difficult - well done you

Well I was in an after school meeting with Class teacher, Autism Advisoy Teacher, Autism Outreach worker on Wednesday, arguing about why they won't put anything in the log book.

Then I was in a 15min meeting on Friday with the Class teacher, the TA and the Headteacher to talk about why things aren't working.

Then I was in a meeting with the SENCO and the HT yesterday morning for an hour to talk about ways forward and to plan a multi-service meeting and to be presented with the stupid IEP.

I'm done quite frankly and they can do with a fresh face rather than always me harping on.

So, anyway. I was hoping it would make me look like less of a control freak too, and if DH says the same as me then it might all have a bit more meaning.

Oh I know it seems like that but when I let my guard down ds gets failed over and over.

I enjoyed the tribunal decision wait. NOTHING to do and no-one to meet. I really want a life just like that - honestly.

There was some relief at not winning the ABA because that would be me running it. Happy for the school to take responsibility for ds' needs, even happy for mistakes. NOT happy for long term failing him.

Star you gotta hastle them daily and grind them down

on second thoughts send the hubby to do the pimping and they may be putty in your hands

He's not the assertive type at all. But neither is he prepared to let ds fail, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

DH is walking inertia, so when he makes a stand people listen.

Asked him how it went. Answer: 'How you said it would!'

IEP is a county thing and policy says no more than 3 targets. Targets that you suggest are unmanagable. DS has SALT, Autism Advisory and OT what more do you want? Targets aren't set in stone, when met can move on. Isn't time to do more. Ok will take your targets to HT and see what she says.

And I've had two glasses of wine now so feel much better.

Okay, drafted email to the Headteacher.

Star a different point of view but one honed by experience of a year of this stuff. I think you need to decide whether these people can help your DS. Do they genuinely have the skills and training to do a good job or are they just skilled in the wishy washy autism eclectic rhetoric of crappy TEACCH-lite courses and have never (a) seen good intervention or (b) practised any or (c) hold any belief that good intervention can make a big difference / stuck in low expectations. Because if you are stuck with the crock of shit we have been for the past year of useless outreach staff who do stupid targets and just tick boxes and piss off then I am afraid your best bet tactically would be to just back right off and let it fail. I don't say that lightly but you have done the hard bit - you have proved your DS can make good progress and you might just have to let the next 6 months go. Or do ABA at home yourself and try as much as possible to do different targets than school so you can show a different trajectory. If your ultimate aim is to get ABA then you need to play this tactically. Anything less than 6 months will lead to the accusation you have not given it a try and risk the tribunal sending you back to try again. It helped us at tribunal that we had left DS in this situation at nursery (while doing aba at home) and they had a year of intervention (if you can even describe it as that) and had nothing to show for it - no programmes, no assessments, no strategies, no evidence of progress. Big fat zero. We stood back, didn't nag them, didn't chase them up much and let them hang themselves. They still did a pretty good job of saying we had impeded them due to being pesky parents but there was no evidence of this. It was hard to explain away a year of achieving nothing. We also got smarter about the IEPs - got them to set targets on their themes which would be hard to achieve without good teaching - so you could change the turn taking target to say DS will take turn independently, waiting for his turn without any adult support ie so they have to get him to master the skill not just do the activity. We deliberately steered them to things which needed systematic programmes for success. Then stood back and collected evidence of it not working.

I would talk to your DH and ask yourselves is this going to work - and if its not, if they are not up to the job - just back off and let them do the minimum because it will be much easier to argue against poor progress at tribunal next time rather than putting in loads of effort yourself and then them saying well look how much progress he has made. I know how very desperately you want it to work but you need to ask yourself whether it can. Because to be honest with you I have not met any non aba staff who even know what good autism teaching is.

I wish I was in Herts I would gladly lend you DS1 and DS2 for 'peers'.Could you advertise on aba yahoo etc for some siblings for playdates? Or approach an aba consultancy for social skills groups? DS sometimes 'plays' with a a sibling while her ASD brother does ABA. Or befriend a local childminder?

I don't know Agnes. The thing is, I have no faith that with all the evidence in the world, and obviously incompetent LA who stupidly even told the judge that they didn't have the resources to meet ds' needs and an utterly utterly failed child a judge would rule in our favour. That was the situation we were in and we lost.

Also, I don't think I could bring myself to allow ds to lose this vital 6 months for his social skills development, just because that is where he is, and needs to go next. Even if we let the school fail, we'd have to address this at home, and then the school would take credit for it.

I suppose I am still hoping against hope that they just let us in, or allow us to train them or whatever, but I suppose the LA would never allow that would they? Because that is openingly admitting they can't manage.

I don't want another tribunal. I don't want the politics. I don't want meetings. I don't want to write letters. I just want my ds to have his needs addressed.

Of all the posts I think yours depresses me the most (sorry, nothing personal) because I think you're right. There is no hope for them. They will never listen to me.

I don't know what to do. My options are a)letting him fail and have 6 months off learning anything and risk not winning the tribuanl either. (it isn't about the money, it is about ensuring his needs are met long term)

b) battling with the school every day and producing loads of paperwork, and going to tribunal, representing myself this time as we can't afford to do it the way we did it.

c) Filing an educational negligence case against the LA for what we have already been through. Unlikely to win it but can stick this issue on top which might beat them into submission.

d) pulling him out of nursery, finding a private crap one who will charge us for childcare but allow our 1:1 in to work on his social interaction skills at our 'further' expense (although suspect we'll have some of the funding covered for the placement), and then go back to tribunal unrepresented just out of bitterness.

Star, sadly I agree with Agnes.

I am convinced that the only reason we won our case so (ha!) easily is that we had let dd1 fail in a series of settings.

So, she failed in ms pre-school, with all the usual key worker, extra funding crap.

Then she failed in a specialist asd preschool, with a class size of 10, with a SALT,asd teacher and trained TA per class.

During her time at specialist asd preschool we were mostly noy running our home.programme, due to lack of tutors, but it certain.pt gave them enough rope to hang themselves.

We re started ABA, and within 3 days dd1 was talking more amd interacting more at school. School tried to say it was because she was npw settled, but it was a) the first week back after summer break, b) a new class and teacher for dd1, and c) the onpy staff member who she had interested with the previous year was no longer there (with no explanation or preparation given to dd1)

So, we simultaneously proved no progress without ABA, instant progress with ABA, and generalization from ABA programme without that actually being a target.

But we had to let her fail across settinhgs, proving that even the gold standard LA interventions (this was a place that patents take LA to tribunal to get INTO) would fail dd1, akd that the LA had nothing else to ofer.

It is depressing.g, but true. You have to give it a reasonable length of time, otherwise you will be deemed to have not tried it fully. and it is disgusting that this is the system we face - where we have to let our children fail in order to prove a point, but it is what it is.

it is a marathon, not a sprint. It feels like forever now, but it will enable you to get better provision, for longer, for your ds.

But if he gets ABA for a year -18months NOW, he probably won't need it after that. Grrr.

The IEP is full of spelling mistakes too. Can't believe 5 professionals have written it, not to mention it must be their very best attempt given how 'awkward' I am.

But I let ds fail in his preschool for 2 terms. The LA had no evidence of any progress. I had lots of evidence of neglect.

Yet an EP who had never been to the setting, nor met ds, said in the tribunal that he had been making good progress, and this appeared in the judges decision.

I see a scenario where I let him fail and then we still don't win.